movies: corpse bride

Finally, although a day off schedule due to Ma's training exam thing this morning, we went to see Corpse Bride this afternoon.

I must admit, I've been expecting a lot from this movie. Not only is it directed by Tim Burton, but I'm a HUGE fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, his first full length foray into stop motion animation, and as soon as I heard he was making another, and one with a title like Corpse Bride, I was hooked.

As always with Burton's films, the whole thing was visually spectacular... from the opening spiral of the quill pen (Burton and his spirals... it's a sickness), through the beautiful and sexy yet partially decomposed Bride, to the final image of the movie, I could not fault the visuals one tiny little bit (other than the occasional thought of "How are they doing THAT?" that did pull me out of the moment a little).

The voice actors all turn in fine performances, particularly Johnny Depp (who turns in a very English and un-Depp sounding performance), Helena Bonham Carter (who's titular character manages to be both sexy and funny), Michael Gough (who is always a pleasure to listen to) and the scenery chewing antics of Christopher Lee as the Pastor.

Where the movie does falter is in plot and story. The last couple of lines of a review on the Internet Movie Database pretty much sum it up...

"In fact, so good is its animation and technique that it is easy to forgive any shortcomings in what is basically a one act, one note story albeit told with sincerity. With just a bit more pathos and storyline, Burton's team would have had an instant classic."

And that is the problem... the movie does seem to coast along rather quickly... several of the plot points are overly obvious, and in spots it feels like things have been lifted from other Burton movies, particularly Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands.

Danny Elfman's songs do seem out of place here... or rather, they feel more like filler than something that moves the story on as they should do. I think this would have been stronger without the songs (except maybe Victor's introduction to the land of the dead)... while they did get my toes tapping as Elfman's songs tend to do, there just seemed to be either too many, or not enough... leaving the songs that were there kind of hanging in the wind.

Having said all that, its a beautiful and entertaining movie, it just could have been better.

yani's rating: 2 detachable bodyparts out of 5